Australian PR worker Sandy Kaye was refused service at a pharmacy in Darwin because she was talking on her mobile phone. The pharmacist said "it risked patient confidentiality litigation if the person on the other end of the phone overheard private prescription details". NTnews.com.au reports:

After a 20 minute wait, Ms Kaye said she went to find out what was happening to her prescription.

"I'm thinking: 'Has she gone to Timbuktu to get this'?"

Ms Kaye - who is from Melbourne and in Darwin for a conference - said she approached the counter to be told the shop's policy was not to serve on-phone customers.

"There was nobody else in the store," Ms Kaye said.

"She glared at me and said 'we're not serving you until you get off the phone - we don't do that here'."

Only last week I was behind a woman at a till when the shop assistant was forced to ask her a question. It took quite a while to get madam's attention, what with her focus on relaying the inexplicable details of some gentleman "not showing me respect", but contact did finally penetrate – only for our heroine to apologise to the person to whom she was speaking, fix the checkout worker with a stunned expression, and hiss: "Er, excuse me? I'm on the PHONE?"

Do you think the pharmacy was right to withhold service? Do you make a point not to talk on your phone in a shop, or do you think Kaye was right to be outraged? Where should retail workers draw the line?